CineStewardPrivacy policy
What CineSteward keeps about you, why, for how long, who else is involved, and what you can do about it.
Last updated 6 November 2026. This policy covers the CineSteward app on every device, the CineSteward server it talks to, and this website.
1. In short
- CineSteward has no ads, no tracking and no analytics, and we never sell or rent anything about you.
- An account needs only a username, a name and a password. No email address, no phone number, no real name.
- Your library lives on your own device. The CineSteward server gets what you share with friends, and your whole library only if you switch on keeping it the same on your devices.
- The CineSteward server is in Germany, in the EU.
- You can download your data, remove parts of it or delete your account at any time, here or in the app. Deleted data is gone from the server straight away, and from its backups within 14 days.
2. Who is responsible
The controller of your personal data, who decides what happens with it under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is Fabian 'DizzyEyes' Snijder, in the Netherlands, called "CineSteward", "we" and "us" here.
For anything about your data, write to CineSteward@protonmail.com. Signed in to the app, you can also use CineSteward at the top of Friends. We haven't appointed a data protection officer, as the law doesn't ask one of a service this size; the address above reaches the people who decide.
3. What we keep, and why
For each kind of data: what it is, what it's for, and the reason the law allows it (its legal basis). Most of it is needed to give you what you signed up for: an account, friends and syncing (performing our agreement with you, GDPR article 6(1)(b)). Keeping accounts safe and the service running rests on our legitimate interest in security and reliability (article 6(1)(f)); you can object to that, see your rights. Where we ask for your consent (article 6(1)(a)), we say so, and you can take it back at any time.
Your account
Your username (what you sign in with), the name friends see, your password, your friend code and when you made the
account. Your password is never kept as it is: only a salted hash (PBKDF2 with SHA-512, 210,000 rounds) that can check
it but can't be turned back into it. To make an account you may need a sign-up code or an invite link from a friend.
Why: to give you an account. Kept: until you delete it.
Signing in and keeping your account safe
- Signed-in devices: the name your device gives itself and its system (say "LAPTOP-7Q2 (Windows)"), when it signed in and was last used. The sign-in itself is kept only as a fingerprint. A sign-in ends after 60 days unused, and after 180 days at most.
- Account events: sign-ins, wrong passwords, a changed password, a wrong two-step code, with the device's name, so you can see them under Settings → Account and sign out what wasn't you. Kept 30 days, 50 at most.
- Two-step sign-in, if you switch it on: its secret, encrypted, and fingerprints of your recovery codes. Your account recovery code is kept only as a fingerprint too.
- Your internet (IP) address is used for a moment to slow down wrong passwords (15 minutes) and too many requests (a minute), in the server's memory only. It is never saved with your account.
Why: signing you in, and keeping your account safe (performing our agreement, and our legitimate interest in security).
What you share with your friends
While you're signed in, your app shares your profile with your friends, and only them: the titles in your library with their status, your ratings, how far you are, the reviews and lists you choose to share, your last 30 days of activity, badges, stats and year in review, your top 5, your favourite genres and streaming services, the line about you, and your profile picture and the picture at the top of your profile. Each time it changes, the new one replaces the old.
You decide how much: under Settings → Account → Privacy a Private profile shares only your name, the year you joined and the line about you, Share my activity can be off, and a title set to Only you (under Who sees it in its details) is never shared. Anyone you give your friend code to sees your name when they send you a request.
Why: sharing with friends is what you use it for (performing our agreement). Kept: until you change it, remove it or delete your account.
What you do with friends
Friend requests and friends, who you blocked, the emoji you put on friends' activity, titles you recommend to a friend
(with your note), your comments on titles and on episodes you watch together, shows you watch together and what's
ticked, the lists you keep with a friend and your votes on them, and invite links you make (they work 7 days, and are
deleted after 30 with who joined with them). Your friends see these as the app shows them; nobody else does.
Why: performing our agreement. Kept: until you remove them or delete your account.
Your synced library (only if you switch it on)
With Keep my library the same on my computers on (it's off until you switch it on), the CineSteward
server keeps a copy of your whole library, so your devices stay the same: every title with its status, ratings,
reviews (also the private ones), tags, what you watched and when, titles set to Only you, your own
lists, your activity and the people you follow. To let you go back to an earlier day, it also keeps earlier versions:
the last 7 days your library changed, one a week for the 3 weeks before, and up to 3 from just before you went back,
nothing older than 30 days except the very latest. This copy is protected on its way (HTTPS) and on the server, but
it isn't encrypted end to end, so the server could read it; only the CineSteward team can reach the server, and only
to keep it running.
Why: the syncing you switched on (performing our agreement). Kept: until you switch it off and
remove it, or delete your account.
Your calendar link (only if you make one)
The titles your calendar follows, and the calendar made for them, which calendar apps fetch with your private link.
The calendar file is dropped after 90 days without being fetched and made again when it is.
Why: performing our agreement. Kept: until you stop the link or delete your account.
Your messages with the CineSteward team
What you send us in the app, and our replies. If you choose to, a message can include the app's version, your
system's version, and an error report, which you see before you send it, with your home folder, library folders and
media-server address left out. The team may use an AI assistant (Claude, by Anthropic) to help read and answer
messages; see who else is involved.
Why: helping you (performing our agreement, and our legitimate interest in fixing what goes wrong).
Kept: until you remove them or delete your account.
Your suggestions for the app's words
Translations and better wording you send in under Contribution, with your notes and what we decided.
If you switch on Thank me by name, your name and the languages you helped with are shown publicly
under Settings → App → Thanks; that rests on your consent, and switching it off takes your name off
the list. Suggestions we take in become part of the app.
Kept: until you remove them or delete your account; a suggestion already in the app stays there, without
your name.
Movie and show information
To show you movies and shows, your app asks the CineSteward server, which asks TMDB (The Movie Database). The server passes on only what's needed, such as what you searched for and your language and country, never who you are. It keeps TMDB's answers for up to 24 hours, and searches for 10 minutes, without who asked. Posters and other pictures come straight from TMDB's picture servers; see who else is involved.
Updates
Your app asks the CineSteward server for the newest version, also when you're not signed in, without saying who you are. Downloads come from GitHub.
The server's logs, and this website
The CineSteward server doesn't log your requests. Its logs hold what goes wrong and how much work was done, never for whom, and are kept 30 days. The server's firewall and its protection against break-ins note the internet addresses of connections they turn away, and of attempts to sign in to the server itself, kept about 30 days, to keep the server safe (our legitimate interest in security).
This website uses no cookies, no analytics and nothing from other websites (no outside fonts, scripts or pictures). When you use a form here, what you type is used for that one request and not kept, except what the form does (deleting or removing data).
4. What stays on your device
Your library, settings, safety copies and the pictures the app downloaded are kept on your own device, in CineSteward's own folders, and don't leave it unless you sync, share or export them. Your sign-in, and the sign-ins of services you connect, are kept in your system's protected storage where it has one (Windows' data protection, a Mac's keychain, the keyring on Linux). An error log stays on your device unless you send it to us. We can't see, change or delete any of this: you can, in the app, or by uninstalling it and removing its folders.
5. Who else is involved
We don't sell, rent or trade anything about you, and we don't share it with anyone for advertising. These companies are involved in running CineSteward:
| Who | What for | What they get |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner Online GmbH, Germany | Hosting the CineSteward server, in Germany | Everything the server keeps, as our processor: they can't use it for anything of their own |
| TMDB (The Movie Database, part of Xperi Inc.), USA | Movie and show information, and its pictures | From the server, searches and lookups without who asked. From your device, your internet address and which pictures it loads. TMDB's privacy policy |
| GitHub (Microsoft), USA | App downloads and updates | Your internet address and which file, when you download |
| Microsoft Azure, Sweden | Until 20 November 2026 only: passing older versions of the app on to the current server address | What those apps send, passed on as it comes |
| Proton AG, Switzerland | Our email | What you send to our email address |
| Anthropic, USA | An AI assistant (Claude) the team may use to help read and answer messages and suggestions | The message or suggestion, with your username, when the team uses it |
And only if you choose to use them:
- Trakt (USA) and your TMDB account: if you connect them, what you watch, rate and want to see is sent to them through the CineSteward server, which doesn't keep it; the keys to your accounts there stay on your device. What you sent them stays there under their own policies.
- Plex and Jellyfin: your app talks to your own media server directly; signing in to Plex goes through plex.tv.
- Discord (USA): with Discord status on (it's off until you switch it on), your Discord app shows what you're watching to the people Discord shows your status to.
- Calendar apps, such as Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple's: they fetch your calendar link.
- YouTube: trailers open in your browser, on YouTube.
We'd only give data to the police or a court if the law requires it of us, and only what it requires.
6. Outside the EU
The CineSteward server is in the EU. Some of the companies above are in the USA (TMDB, GitHub, Anthropic, and Trakt and Discord if you use them) or in Switzerland (Proton). Switzerland has an EU adequacy decision. For the USA, these transfers rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the company takes part in it, and otherwise on the EU's standard contractual clauses or what the company's own terms offer. Write to us for more about any of them.
7. How long we keep things
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account, what you share, what you do with friends, messages, suggestions | Until you remove it or delete your account |
| Your synced library | Until you remove it or delete your account; earlier versions 30 days at most |
| Signed-in devices | 60 days unused, 180 days at most |
| Account events (sign-ins, wrong passwords) | 30 days, 50 at most |
| Invite links | Deleted 30 days after they're made |
| Calendar file | 90 days without being fetched |
| Your internet address, for slowing down wrong passwords | 15 minutes, in memory only |
| Server logs, firewall notes | About 30 days |
| Backups of the server | 14 days |
The CineSteward server makes a backup every night, so it can be put back if something goes wrong. Backups, and the copies made just before the server is updated, are kept for 14 days and then deleted; only if new backups can't be made for a while are the last few kept a little longer, so the server can always be put back. Backups are kept with the server, in Germany, and are only used to put it back.
8. When you delete your account
You can delete your account in the app under Settings → Account → Delete account, or on this website. Your account and everything of it on the CineSteward server are deleted straight away: your profile and pictures, friends, comments, reactions, recommendations, shows watched together, shared lists, your synced library, calendar link, messages with the team, suggestions and sign-ins.
- Your data leaves the server's backups within 14 days. If the server ever had to be put back to a backup made before you deleted your account, the server deletes it again as it starts, before anyone can see it.
- On your own devices, CineSteward keeps your library and carries on without an account. Uninstall the app to remove that too.
- Your friends' apps stop showing you as they next update; for a while they may still show your picture or a notification they already had.
- What you sent to Trakt or your TMDB account stays there: remove it there, and take CineSteward's access away in their settings.
9. Your rights
Under the GDPR, and the privacy laws of many other countries, you have these rights. Most you can use yourself, straight away; for the others, write to CineSteward@protonmail.com. We answer within one month, and it's free.
- To see your data, and take it with you: download everything the server keeps about you, in one file you can read and use elsewhere. Your library can also be exported in the app, under Settings → Library.
- To correct it: change your name, the line about you, your pictures and everything in your library in the app.
- To erase it: remove parts of it, or delete your account.
- To object, or to restrict what we do with it: to what rests on our legitimate interest, by writing to us.
- To take back your consent: switch off Thank me by name under Contribution.
- Not to be judged by a machine: CineSteward makes no decisions about you by automated means.
As accounts have no email address, we may ask you to show the account is yours, for instance by signing in on this website. If you think we've handled your data wrongly, please tell us first; you can also complain to a data protection authority. CineSteward is in the Netherlands, so its authority is the Dutch Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens; you can also go to the one where you live or work, or where you think it went wrong.
10. Keeping it safe
Everything between your app and the server goes over HTTPS. Passwords are hashed as above, sign-ins and recovery codes are kept only as fingerprints, and two-step sign-in can be switched on. You hear about sign-ins and wrong passwords in the app. The server takes only what it needs, is kept up to date with security updates by itself, and lets in nothing but the app's traffic and the team's encrypted access. No system is perfectly safe; should a breach ever put your data at risk, we tell you in the app, and the authority, as the law requires. More, and how to tell us about a security problem, is on Security.
11. Children
CineSteward isn't meant for children under 16. Under 16, please use it only with a parent's or guardian's permission. If you think a child gave us data without that, write to us and we'll delete it.
12. Changes to this policy
When CineSteward changes what it does with your data, this policy changes with it, and the date at the top with it. Important changes are also announced in the app before they take effect.
13. Contact
Fabian 'DizzyEyes' Snijder, the Netherlands
Email: CineSteward@protonmail.com
In the app: CineSteward at the top of Friends